Word: hsbc
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...logic for closer Asian economic integration is becoming more compelling as intraregional trade becomes more important when compared with Asia's trade with the West. According to HSBC, the share of Asia's exports to the U.S. and Europe declined to 30% of the regional total in 2008, down from nearly 40% in 1998. Over the same period, intraregional exports as a share of total exports in emerging Asia rose to 54% from 46%. "Intra-Asian trade flows are the fastest growing in the world," says Lawrence Webb, global head of trade and supply chain at HSBC. This trend...
...loose monetary policy in Asia could fuel dangerous and unstable asset price bubbles, especially in property. There has been some speculation in financial markets that South Korea's central bank could raise interest rates in the coming months to cool a roaring housing market. Frederic Neumann, an economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, says Asian central bankers might need to hike rates by four percentage points over the next year - much more than is expected from the Fed - in order to quash inflation and asset bubbles. "This is the real test for Asia: the region's central banks have...
...part of a car-engine plant to produce "green" electrical generators. And if you buy into the great Asian growth story, then there is a chance that spending by wealthier consumers in countries like China and India can offset at least some of the decreased demand in the West. HSBC economist Frederic Neumann said in a September report that some Asian manufacturers have gained back the power to raise prices, implying that the impact of excess capacity in the region might not be as severe as some fear. "What was so scary about the recession were the unprecedented output gaps...
...Others are not so sanguine. HSBC's China economist, Qu Hongbin, worries that his country is full of manufacturers trying to hang on while waiting for overseas demand to recover. "There still is hope that we'll go back to the old days," Qu says. But "demand in the future will be lower than in the past," he says. "That means the factory owners have to face reality" - the reality of them no longer cranking out ever more widgets in a widget-weary world...
...HSBC isn't completely turning its back on the West. Green, the chairman, will remain in London, as will HSBC's official world headquarters. Yet HSBC's return to Asia is still an important signal of where the bank and the world economy believes it will find new growth. "The self-styled 'world's local bank' is realizing some locales are more important than others," noted an editorial in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's largest English-language newspaper. "It has taken an extraordinary financial crisis for the bank to see that its future lies where its roots...